Opinion

Perhaps we should slow down for Christmas?

Now that the season of Advent has started, Hannah Hammond suggests an antidote to the hustle and bustle of the run-up to Christmas.

Everywhere we turn, people seem to be exhausted. Headlines warn of rising burnout, rising anxiety, rising pressure to be constantly available. Even our moments of rest are filled with noise—scrolling, reacting, performing. This pervasive speed and overstimulation threaten to deafen the heart and mind.
 
As we move through Advent, it strikes me that Christians have a spiritual resource that our culture desperately needs: the discipline of slowing down. Advent was never meant to be a frenzied countdown, a four-week dash to buy, decorate, organise, and perfect. Historically, it was a season of quiet and steady watchfulness. A season that asks us not to hurry, but to wait. Not to fill every moment, but to make room. Not to multiply our to-do lists, but to lift our eyes.
 
And yet for many of us, December is the busiest month of the year. Church calendars overflow. Family expectations grow. Work schedules tighten. The irony is painful: a season designed to slow us becomes the time we accelerate the most.
 
Slowing down is a spiritual posture. It creates space for noticing—God, others, ourselves. When we move at speed, we miss the small mercies that sustain us: a kind word, a moment of beauty, a chance to breathe. We miss the people who need us. We miss the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit.
 
In a culture that celebrates hustle and efficiency, choosing to slow down is a countercultural act of faith that affirms: ‘I believe God is at work even when I am not.’ It Is about trusting that grace is enough and recognizing that we do not need to outrun our limits to be loved. It’s about remembering that God’s work in the world is not fragile or rushed. When Jesus came, He came quietly, slowly, hidden in a stable. The salvation of the world arrived in obscurity, not in a frantic hurry.

This Advent, perhaps the invitation is simple: pause. Light a candle and sit without a screen. Read a Psalm. Walk slowly. Eat slowly. Pray slowly. Listen more than you speak. Let silence become a sanctuary rather than a threat.
 
The world is tired and so many of us are at risk of burnout. But the good news of the Christian story is that God meets us in our stillness.  As Psalm 46 reminds us, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’  When we are willing to wait in silent prayer and solitude before God, the Holy Spirit re-centres our lives, addressing fragments and confusion, leading us to the heart of who we are.
 
Stillness, in this spiritual sense, is not emptiness or absence, but a presence—a fullness, with God at its heart. It provides space for God to move and speak. Without inner stillness, we become estranged from ourselves, and consequently, estranged from others. If we can reclaim the discipline of slowing down—not just for Advent but as a way of life—we might find ourselves living more fully, loving more generously, and noticing the presence of Jesus in places we had previously been rushing past.
 
Maybe slowing down is not weakness at all. Maybe it’s where strength begins.

Hannah Hammond is a theology graduate with a passion for writing and anything creative. She currently works for St Mary Magdalen Church in Gorleston but is about to join East Coast College as a success coach. See rootedtheology.com

The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. 

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